Another White Person caught 'Passing as PoC'

Found on the CBC website:

Quote:

With a feather in her hand and a bright blue shawl and Métis sash draped over her shoulders, Carrie Bourassa made her entrance to deliver a TEDx Talk at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon in September 2019, where she detailed her personal rags-to-riches story. “My name is Morning Star Bear,” she said, choking up. “I’m just going to say it — I’m emotional.” The crowd applauded and cheered. “I’m Bear Clan. I’m Anishinaabe Métis from Treaty Four Territory,” Bourassa said, explaining that she grew up in Regina’s inner city in a dysfunctional family surrounded by addiction, violence and racism. .... But some of her colleagues, like Winona Wheeler, an associate professor of Indigenous studies at the University of Saskatchewan, say Bourassa’s story is built on a fundamental falsehood. Wheeler, a member of Manitoba’s Fisher River Cree Nation, says genealogical records show Bourassa is not Indigenous at all, but rather of entirely European descent.

https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/...ssa-indigenous


The concluding paragraphs spell out the major issue with 'self-identification'

Quote:

Wheeler said the fact that the letter advocates sidelining genealogical proof is alarming at a time when Indigenous people are fighting for their rights and their land. “That’s opening the doors to every Tom, Dick and Harry to claim Indigeneity,” she said. “Then suddenly out of the woodwork, everybody’s Indigenous because they feel like it.”

via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/3qlZNuP